bedelman

A friend was on a JAL BOS-NRT segment that was delayed 3+ hours for unspecified mechanical reasons. This was a full J segment, on an open jaw ticket that was $10k+ r/t. Friend was slated to have just 2.5 business days in Tokyo, so the delay cost half a business day -- a missed meeting and a real loss.

Competitors' flights, with connections elsewhere, were $4k+ cheaper. My friend paid extra for JAL to get the nonstop because of the purported time savings.

After returning, my friend wrote to JAL Customer Service via their web site, noting the exceptionally high fare, significant delay, and loss of the time-savings benefit of the nonstop. JAL was unreceptive:

My thoughts:

1) It's alarming to pay a premium for a nonstop, then not get the promised time savings. Of course a connecting flight could have a delay too, yes. But when a passenger pays so much, reliable performance is reasonably expected.

2) Seems like a passenger on $10k+ J tickets is someone JAL would want to keep. In fact they're at high risk of losing my friend's business -- yes, JAL has a nonstop; but by all indications it's unreliable; and other carriers have seats my friend prefers plus lower fares and upgrades to F via various means.

3) I don't immediately see a good argument under Contract of Carriage or applicable law.

My friend proposed compensation of 50K AAdvantage miles, enough for a replacement one-way business class ticket (albeit in the highly-limited award inventory). But JAL refused to offer any compensation at all, as quoted above.

Meanwhile, the entertainment system was substantially inoperative (details not known to me), for which JAL proposes 7500 JMB miles. Not super useful to US pax in AAdvantage.

Seems like JAL is having a lot of 787 delays. Note the lengthy thread on point. There's a fine argument that it should be Boeing, not JAL, paying for these recurring problems. (Compare handling of QF's losses during A380 disruptions.)

Feedback welcomed! If anyone knows a receptive JAL staff person, perhaps a US or Boston sales manager or CS manager who will find a way to keep my friend's business, that would be particularly helpful.

JALPak

Sorry to hear about the delay. It's unfortunate but bugs in new aircrafts are expected and reliability should improve over time. Below is JAL's delay contingency plan and no mention of any kind of compensation either.

http://www.ar.jal.com/arl/region/en/...ntingency.html

Personally I don't think it is reasonable to ask for a free one-way C award just because of a 3+ hour delay. If that's the expectation he has and he wants upgrades then I would suggest him to stick with AA (which I actually wasn't sure if they would offer that either as they didn't give me anything other than a free hotel when they canceled my flight because the co-pilot didn't bother to show up to work and I was forced to stay overnight at BOS).

I believe there should be a JAL Coupon option instead of JMB miles for IFE problems. Was that being offered?

SKRan

1) Full fare business and deep discount economy on the same plane have same probability of mechanical failure and hence delay. The expectation that paying more equals less chance of delay is wrong.

2) Airlines are sometimes responsible for mechanical failure but never responsible for consequential loss.

3) 787 is new so its even more likely to fail.

4) At BOS, JL is at outstation, unlike DL/AA/UA who have more airplanes to move around / reroute in case of IRROPS.

so suck it and learn next time.

joejones

Adding to the above.

(1) If you lose so much money because your flight was delayed by 3 hours, you really have no idea about risk management. Flights can get delayed that much for just about any wild reason imaginable.

(2) The BOS-NRT flight, like most flights to NRT from the US, arrives late in the afternoon, around 4 PM. By the time you get from NRT to the city the business day is already over. A 3-hour delay might cause you to miss a dinner appointment but it's certainly not going to make you miss half a business day unless you work in a restaurant.

(3) Flying on a paid premium ticket does not automatically make you a highly desirable repeat customer.

bedelman

No one said friend lost money in the sense of consequential damages. Rather, friend lost the benefit of the bargain -- paid extra to get the time savings of nonstop; didn't actually get that benefit.

Correct -- the delay caused friend to miss a dinner meeting. Japanese client does business over working dinner. This was the business schedule set to accommodate scheduled flight times.

How many times would a pax need to buy a $10k J ticket to become a highly desirable repeat customer? My friend might fit the bill. But it looks like the next few tickets won't be on JAL!

I was encouraging my friend to give JAL another try -- the time savings of the nonstop being real, much of the time at least; and, I argued, the fine service a reasonable balance against seats inferior to other carriers. It was a tough sell to begin with, and for better or worse JAL seems to have tipped the argument to their detriment with their approach to mechanical delay.

Unimatrix One

I do not know of any airline that offers more than a few thousand FF miles as compensation for a 3-hour delay. I did see one exception to this when I flew ANA. For a 2-hour delay due to computer problems, the FAs walked around the business class cabin giving JPY 5,000 in cash to every passenger. (No bonus miles were offered.) But that's a pretty small amount and seems like it would not satisfy your friend.

3-hour delays are not that uncommon (unfortunately), even with older aircraft. If I have a critically important business meeting, I always allow some cushion by planning to arrive the day before (at least).

joejones

Something tells me that your friend's expectations will prevent them from liking any other airline that flies across the pond.